Wards may close to ensure that patients eat

Hospital wards could be closed for two hours a day at meal times with nurses required to help patients eat under plans expected to be announced in the new year.

The proposal from the Better Hospital Food Panel, led by Loyd Grossman, strikes at the heart of the common complaint that recovering patients do not get the help they need to eat their hospital meals.

"It is a well recognised problem," said Rick Wilson, a member of the panel and director of nutrition and dietetics at King's College Hospital, London.

"We want to develop protected meal times. We are looking at closing doors on wards at mealtimes and saying the top priority during this time is helping people to eat."

He said visitors who helped friends and relations with eating would be allowed to stay. "All ward staff would be there. No ward staff would be off on breaks writing reports. It will be all hands on deck."

He said they were looking at protecting mealtimes for an hour at lunch and an hour at supper, as well as making sure that the evening meal did not arrive in the late afternoon, as often happens. "It's something else we are trying to put right," he said.

Mr Wilson was speaking before the launch of a report from Mag, the malnutrition advisory group of the British Association of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.

The report said two million people in the UK are malnourished, a problem that is growing as the population ages.

The problem was not confined to the elderly but affected anyone suffering from long-term illness and those recovering from cancer treatments that cause them to lose their appetites, Mr Wilson said.

It affects the hospital admission, speed of recovery, wound healing and length of stay in hospital. Mag has estimated that £226 million could be saved each year in hospitals if malnourished patients are identified and treated.

Prof Marinos Elia, the chairman of Mag, said: "Research shows that malnutrition is a serious public health issue. It is essential for us to improve radically nutritional care provision."